Last week we had a busy week as South Africa. On the other hand, we advanced our best feet in both the B20 and G20 launches, and the city of Cape Town congratulated us with nice weather. In another hand, we observed the ongoing tensions in geopolitics. We launched the B20, a business effort to connect to the G20 later this year, allowing business leaders around the world to develop policy proposals with an action-oriented mindset and develop table proposals.
Business leaders across South African companies have come out in numbers to help launch the B20 presidency.
B20 is co-chaired by Business Unity South Africa and Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA). This is a partnership that emphasizes the joint spirit of the initiative. At a recent gala dinner, Chairman Nonkureconi Envegi gave a keynote speech that contextualized the importance of the B20 outcomes, highlighting its importance and relevance. In particular, the B20 Sherpa Cas Coovadia emphasized that this was the first time the B20 was held in Africa.
There was a lot of recognition that this harsh environment in which B20 is being carried out and that some of the policy recommendations must be developed in a dramatically different geopolitical context. The long peace-causing coherent Western Alliance, held in global operations since 1945, has collapsed and has placed a significant responsibility on us during the year that hosts the G20.
In the launch of the B20, Børge Brende, CEO of the World Economic Forum, said, “South Africa has extensive experience in dealing with conflict and competition. Just as you find yourself in this challenging global context, business must continue. Multilateral trade is key to global economic growth with strong trends driven by services and digitalization over the medium term. We must ignore noise and find ways to focus on issues relating to new technologies like energy transition, climate change and AI. He said the US will continue to play a key role in the world economy, accounting for 30% of global trade and half of the world's military capabilities.
Susan Lund, Vice President of International Finance Corporation, talks about the key role that Africa plays in the global economy, where private investors are attracting attention, with investments growing for several years now. South Africa and the continent are growing in population, but major global economic nodes are shrinking. With Africa having a labor force, markets, important minerals and arable land, it must be central to the long-term vision of the next phase of global growth. She also pointed out the role of credit rating agencies. The role of credit rating agencies is that their methodology and outcomes are biased and affecting emerging economies.
Apart from the US and China, the conversation was all about the region. That is important to how South Africa thinks about its future. We must be key in building African proposals as a regional bloc. This means embedding yourself in the area. The logistics system needs to be able to promote regional trade and focus on the African Continental Free Trade Agreement to achieve this.
The G20 programme hosted a Finance Summit in Cape Town last week, bringing together finance ministers from member states. The escalation of global uncertainty and tensions has also been discussed, with President Cyril Ramaphosa in his speech saying, “The erosion of multilateralism poses a threat to global growth and stability.”
The G20 Finance Minister needs to tackle issues such as climate change and debt sustainability financing in developing countries. However, the event did not find sufficient alignment to publish a joint communica- tion, another illustration of an unequal geopolitical environment.
After last week's launch event, the B20 and G20 felt that South Africa had both great opportunities and responsibility. The broader event means that the G20, as the core institution of the multilateral system, plays a key role in setting up a “new normal” for international relations and cooperation. B20 plays a very important role in that process, identifying, developing and advocating new ways to do business and tackling our global challenges together. Last week, I felt very positive that South Africans faced the challenge and our business community worked prominently to support our efforts and provided leadership to the world.
Of course, our national agenda is important in the process. The BLSA hosted Parkstau, Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition, and was able to present a change fund proposal to the BLSA Council. The Minister outlined the need for transformation and the questionable importance of progress we still need to make. The concept of funds is an effort to bring new tools to the table, and the Minister who emphasized should be co-created with stakeholders, including companies.
The concept of funds could help businesses fulfill their bee duties. The fund could enable small and medium-sized businesses that do not have the resources to build their own social and enterprise development programs. The key question is how the fund is managed well and deploys the most beneficial and effective resources. I look forward to working with the Minister to find answers that will ensure that the country is moving forward with change while promoting growth.
We face major challenges both domestically and internationally. We see promising opportunities ahead of time, but it takes a considerable amount of effort to make them happen. We continue to monitor relations between the US and believe we can find solutions on our communications lines. We look forward to working with all involved in working together to achieve the best possible outcome.
Busiswe Mavuso is the CEO of South Africa's Business Leadership.
